Hi everyone, and hello to all of the new subscribers! Let’s get this out of the way: no, I’m not going to talk about a certain album by a certain person who once made “Dark Fantasy,” “Guilt Trip,” and “Paranoid,” because not only do I not have any inclination to throw a single stream toward someone who brought a homophobe and a serial sexual abuser on stage with them last week, I also don’t have the time or patience to listen to an album that’s nearly two fucking hours long. I couldn’t even get this letter out on a Mondy and you expect me to fire up Apple Music for fucking Kanye Dielman, 23, quai du Commence, 1080 Bruxelles? Not going to happen, bitch!
Those of us with taste—the ones who are both diehard Jackieheads and faithful soldiers enlisted in the Kristen Stewarmy—knew that Pablo Larraín’s film about Princess Diana, Spencer, was going to not only change lives but rewrite the course of history as we know it. But I don’t think anyone was quite prepared for the pure movie magic of Kristen Stewart sucking her cheeks in, clenching her jaw, and saying, “They don’t,” which may as well be her saying, “Awright, I’m off ta Tesco, ya woont anyfin’?” Kristen’s one line in this trailer lands like Kristen Stewart doing a spot-on impression of Keira Knightley doing a less accurate impression of Diana, Princess of Wales. Which isn’t bad! Granted, I can’t remember what Diana’s voice sounds like off the top of my head (too young and hot), so this could very well be dead on. But what do I care, anyway! Natalie Portman may have given a pitch-perfect Jackie Kennedy, but I’m not walking into a Pablo Larraín film about Princess Diana looking to compare film to reality, I’m looking for chunky knits. I’m looking for Sally Hawkins using the vehicle for her third Oscar nomination to propel Kristen Stewart to her first. I’m looking for women in a crisis of conscience, which is conveyed by them looking down very often.
And though Pablo Larraín is still pretending to be “straight” and “happily married” with “two children,” I find it admirable that he’s doubling down on making another film about an adored woman with a troubled personal life to signal to me that he does, indeed, care for me even though we can’t be together right now </3. But I’ll wait!
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Not to be crass (sorry mom) but this photo is proof that I have always and will always love cock and balls. Zoë Kravitz, you get what I mean, girlfriend!
Until two weeks ago, the only straight celebrity couple I cared about was Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, simply for the nostalgia factor and because I liked the thought of Jennifer telling Ben not to go in one of their rented yacht’s four bathrooms because that one had her J.Lo Beauty set up in a specific fashion that she preferred not to be touched lest she mix up her J.Lo Beauty ‘That Hit Single’ Gel Cream Cleanser with her J.Lo Beauty ‘That Big Screen’ Broad Spectrum SPF Moisturizer. But then indomitably cool hot girl Zoë Kravitz started walking around New York with America’s resident himbo Channing Tatum and I realized I hold more room in my heart than I thought.
Whether or not Ms. Kravitz is really letting the star of her upcoming directorial debut Pussy Island hit it is a question that remains somewhat unsolved, but I get the feeling she deeply has a thing for dating hot boys and making them even hotter, an art she tested and perfect when she brought Karl Glusman from this to this and then set him free into the world 87% hotter and cooler. Article of evidence number two to that point would be the Deadline piece published when Pussy Island was announced in June:
Zoë Kravitz will not allow any man of hers to know comfort and she will make it feel like it was partially their idea. That’s womanhood, that’s speaking truth to power! And though Kravitz didn’t have much work to do on Tatum given that he never strayed from the path Amanda Bynes set for him in 2006, I certainly appreciate her contribution to the cause (this newsletter/my spank bank). I mean…my god!
(Rating: Top Shelf. Thank you Zoë Kravitz!!!!!!!)
Did you just feel that? An earthquake the magnitude of 10.0 on the Richter scale, surely the same score Pitchfork will give whatever album or EP this is is a part of.
Now that’s how you clear a bitch!!!!!!!!!
You may remember at the beginning of this post when I said I wasn’t going to listen to a certain album by a certain artist featured on “Beat Goes On” by Madonna. And that’s true, I shan’t! But I do have time and space to discuss one controversial artist who I have been finding particular joy in watching over the last week. Azealia Banks just finished up another hometown performance in New York City, part of a sold-out, three-night residency at Webster Hall. This video was the first thing I saw upon waking up the other day, and something has really stuck with me each of the 10,000 times I’ve watched Banks scoot her ass down the stage with one leg to an adoring crowd waiting for her to begin singing what has now officially taken hold as her comeback single, “Fuck Him All Night.”
It’s exuberant. That’s one word for it. There is lighthearted happiness in the air that radiates through this video and through every other video I’ve seen of both of the shows that have taken place so far. After a long road and a tumultuous career filled with bumps, then potholes, then crevasses, then ravines, there is something so incredibly joyful about seeing Azealia Banks being allowed to have fun and unleash her massive, contagious personality onto New York once more. As an artist who came up young and was given everything almost overnight in the summer of 2012 before being manipulated by the industry and having it all taken away from her when she couldn’t cope how the public wanted her to, it’s heartening to see that as much as she has been through, Banks hasn’t lost the personal ecstasy that radiates through all of her best music.
Almost ironically, it seems that a cultural climate so many people of older generations see as “intolerant” because of what they perceive to be “cancel culture,” is actually a world where Banks can finally thrive. Through all of her mistakes, apologies, feuds, more apologies, etc., the one thing that has never faltered is Azealia’s talent. It’s the thing that has kept people checking in with her when so many others would’ve been relegated to flash in the pan status. Her road has been complicated, and legacy is too, but right now we’re riding on a string of apologies and in a good place, which Banks said on Instagram recently that she feels too after finding a trustworthy manager who has allowed her to create freely and on her own terms. Azealia’s art and hustle have transcended her past and have now pushed her into a shining spotlight of constant revelry. The Webster Hall shows, which I am furious I didn’t score tickets for, have setlists stacked top to bottom with hits and iconic singles from the entirety of her career so far, from her debut all the way up until now. Who else is performing a viral TikTok hit (“Luxury”), a megaphone meme witch-hop track (“Yung Rapunxel”), a brand new hit single, and their bombastic breakthrough song all in the span of one show? This is Azealia Banks’ time. This is the moment that was taken from her before the world was ready for an artist like her. I mean, just seeing the way the room explodes upon hearing “212” together holds so much pure energy that we could possibly stop burning fossil fuels!
Truly remarkable. I hope things stay on this path for her for a long time to come. It’s now also my moral obligation to remind you that this is the best song ever made.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
I’m certainly no expert on the legality of these kinds of situations, but it seems a bit outlandish and stupid to me that Ms. Rodrigo—an 18-year-old girl who was born in 2003 which puts her barely at four years old when Paramore released “Misery Business”—was shamed into giving Paramore a writing credit on “good 4 u,” a song that shares maybe a couple of similar chords with “Misery Business” but otherwise has literally nothing else to my sexy, discerning ears that sounds like a straight sample or interpolation of the Paramore song. I say it all the time, and I’m guilty of indulging in it myself, but nostalgia is the most powerful and potent drug that we have. Trust me, as a twenty-[redacted] year old myself, I feel cheated out of many things and wish we could go back to a time when things were simpler and Hayley Williams could be allowed to slut-shame on the radio in a catchy emo song without pushback! But that also doesn’t mean that we’re entitled to shame young people into thinking that inspiration is equal to straight-up copying.
Now, I only listened to this album once all the way through, but I’m told “brutal” is a much more obvious lift from an Elvis Costello song. This I do not care about, as I don’t spend any time or attention on the legacies of men! I would, however, like to talk to whoever wrote the treatment for the “brutal” video…I have a bone to pick. The girls can’t keep getting away with copying Rina Sawayama.
(Rating: Low Brow)
There’s nothing special about this photo, I just wanted you all to know that when I saw it I thought Sonja Morgan got a Slayyyter-style dye job.
I’ve used up all my explicitly horny tokens for this newsletter so, regarding this video, I just want to say it’s lovely that two men can come together to speak directly to the camera and playfully grab each other. It’s so important that we have that! I know I’m a big fan. Would certainly be interesting to be a part of this group! I too love to be grabbed by the gruff, strong hands of my man friends. Just two guys, being dudes :) Intimate friendship is so lovely. Would love to have some intimate friendship with huge-tiddied men sometime.
(Rating: Top-me Shelf)
I have many questions for Julianne Moore about this reel she posted doing a face mask to Selena Gomez’s “Souvenir,” but the one I keep coming back to most is if she has ever heard Stars Dance in full. Is Julianne Moore a Selenator? And adjacent to that, the one question I’m always asking, “Does Julianne Moore know that M.I.A. name-checked her in ‘Y.A.L.A.’?”
That’s all for this week! Except, of course, my bowing out of my commissions from Taste (for now) with one final filmography ranking, this time for one of my favorite twinks of all time, Timothée Chalamet.
What an honor to write about Twigothée, who truly only started making good films about four years ago, but has been a captivating presence in everything he has ever been in, which includes some truly terrible pieces of shit. And also some of my favorite films! Go figure.
Alright, now we’re finished. I want to say a huge hello and thank you to all of the new subscribers that have signed up for Top Shelf, Low Brow over the last week. Couldn’t be more excited that you’ve made it to the TSLB offices. Sorry for coming to you a day late on a Tuesday, I’m carving out specific blocks of time on Sundays from now on to write the entirety of the Monday letter so it arrives in your inbox on time. Though that intention was thrown out the window this last week after I nursed a violent hangover from the three cocktails I had at Alamo Drafthouse while seeing The Night House. But now that I’ve made the mistake of ordering the Pirate Punch once, it won’t happen again!
Love you all and see you on Friday. 💖
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